Impact of green digital finance on sustainable development: evidence from China’s pilot zones

Abstract

To investigate the impact of Green Digital Finance (GDF) policies on sustainable regional development goals, this study exploits the implementation of China’s green finance reform and innovation pilot zones as a quasi-natural experiment to examine the theory and impact of policy channels on sustainable development. A difference-in-differences model was applied to evaluate the impact of policies in these zones based on data from 285 cities in China from 2014 to 2020. Research has shown that the GDF is conducive to achieving sustainable development goals through the effects of financial inclusion and energy transitions, which promote the transformation and upgrading of industrial structures. The impact of the GDF pilot-zone policies on the sustainable development of cities at different levels, locations, resource endowments, and green total factor productivity is heterogeneous. This study provides accurate empirical evidence of the effects of the extensive implementation of the policies adopted in the pilot zones and the expansion of the scale of these zones, and it provides policy recommendations for the GDF.